Chair's Message continued

Greetings from the corner office of Delehanty Hall. I am glad to announce that I have now survived two years as department Chair! As always, it has been a busy and productive year. Below is a very brief summary of our activities, while more details are in the newsletter and on our website.

Paul Bierman has been traveling all over the world as usual (Brazil, France, and Greenland, just to mention a few locations) and his Cosmogenic Isotope lab and students have been churning out exciting new data non-stop. In addition to that, he’s been working very hard on two textbooks, one of which is now completed. Keith Klepeis also had an extremely productive year. He is mentoring numerous undergraduate and graduate students, has organized fieldtrips in New England, and had another successful field season in New Zealand. John Hughes has been keeping himself and his recently acquired single-crystal diffractometer very busy. This month he will take over as President of the Mineralogical Society of America. Congratulations! Char and her graduate student Steven Gohlke had a great time doing fieldwork in Egypt earlier this year. A second field expedition, this time with two courageous undergraduate students, is planned for January 2013. Laura Webb’s brand new geochronology facility is coming along well. All the major pieces of equipment have been installed and are in the process of being tested and fine-tuned with the help of lab-maverick Dan Jones. Stephen Wright is on sabbatical leave this fall and coming spring, but he is certainly not slowing down! With a bit of luck one can spot him somewhere in the Killington area mapping and digging, always looking for new and exciting clues related to the glacial history of our region.

We have two new faces in the department this year: Kasey Kathan, from Queens University, Kingston, Ontario is taking over the intro geology and environmental geology teaching responsibilities while Stephen is on sabbatical. Dr. Andrew Schroth is a new Research Assistant Professor. He comes to UVM from the USGS at Woods Hole, MA. Andrew is one of the leaders of the VT EPSCoR RACC (Research on Adaptation to Climate Change) Program. You can learn much more about these two newcomers from their personal statements.

The summer 2012 Regional Geology trip went back to Colorado and was a great success (Stephen must be getting close to qualifying as a Colorado citizen). He and graduate teaching assistant Ben DeJong did an excellent job leading a group of eager undergraduate students on a three week long “tour” of some of the most impressive geological attractions of the state.

Once again Jack has managed to collect all the information needed to put this newsletter together. As usual, not an easy feat! As always, we have Gabriela, Robin and Srebrenka to thank for keeping our small, but buzzing Department running smoothly. There is really never a chance for our support trio to get bored, and without them the place would fall apart pretty quickly!

Last but not least: We are very proud to announce that this past spring the new VT State Bedrock map was unveiled after 30 years of hard work by many professional geologists and students, including UVM geology department faculty graduate and undergraduate students.

On the financial side of Chairing, our budget was especially tight this year. Every donation helps, so please consider making a donation to support the UVM Geology Department. Simply donate by choosing "Secure Online Giving Form" and select "other" to write in "Geology Department" for donations directly to the department. If you would like your donation used for a specific purpose then please indicate. All of your funds go directly to students. This really IS a case of “every dollar helps.” On behalf of everyone in the Department, “thank you” for all your support!